For nearly a dozen years I wrote a weekly column for The Miami Herald about mutual funds. That was in the decades surrounding and including the 1990s when mutual funds were in their media heyday. In those days any push-and-pull about funds centered around whether investors ought to pay a sales charge on their fund investments or not. Mr. Vanguard, John Bogle, lead the invest-only-in-no-load-funds parade. Tooting that same horn was Sheldon Jacobs. founder of the very well-respected investment newsletter, The No-Load Fund Investor. I still read it today.

Jacobs died earlier this month at the age of 84. Reports are he died while out walking near his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona. A kind exit for an always-pleasant guy I knew from my old mutual fund reporting days. And, one who made his readers wiser and many of those who followed his investment advice no doubt wealthier.

In addition to the newsletter he founded in 1979, Jacobs wrote two dozen books about investing. His last book, Investing without Wall Street, offered five investment principles everyone needs to heed no matter which investment choices they make: load or no-load funds, stocks, ETFs, bonds, private equity, limited partnerships, hedge funds, etc.